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French Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes filled with a butter, milk, parsley mixture and topped with egg white or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

French Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Bake the potatoes in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut them in half and scoop out the potato carefully.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the milk, parsley, pepper, and salt. Mix this into a paste over the heat.

Fill and brown

  1. Fill each half-potato with the mixture.

  2. Brush the tops with egg white or melted butter. Brown the tops under a salamander, hot iron, or in the oven for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve alone or with cold meats.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy flesh that is scooped out and holds the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the filling soft.
Milk
Adds moisture so the potato and butter combine into a smooth paste.
Egg white
Brushed on top, it helps the tops take on colour when browned.

The step that matters

Mix the filling into a paste over the heat. Stirring the warm butter, milk and potato together until smooth gives an even, creamy filling. Heating it while mixing also keeps it warm for filling the shells.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, milk, pepper, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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